Three Florida residents pleaded guilty Friday to assaulting pregnancy support centers between May and July 2022, including one in Winter Park.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Caleb Freestone, Amber Smith Stewart and Anarella Rivera chose to target a pro-life reproductive health clinic that offered patients resources and counseling on alternatives to abortion.
Authorities said the defendants wrote threatening messages and vandalised the building.
Freestone, Smith-Stewart and Rivera pleaded guilty to conspiring to harm, oppress, threaten and intimidate employees of the targeted pregnancy support centers.
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The pro-abortion extremist group Jane’s Revenge initially targeted the wrong address when it tried to vandalize the Jackson Right to Life office building. (Photo by Kathy Potts)
The defendants pleaded guilty and acknowledged taking part in the nighttime attack wearing masks and black clothing to hide their identities. The suspects then spray-painted threatening messages on the facilities, including “If abortion is unsafe, abortion is unsafe.” [sic] “You?” “Your time is over!!” “We are coming for you” “We are everywhere.”
“The defendants vandalized pregnancy support centers with threatening messages designed to intimidate their staff,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Violence and intimidation have no place in a national debate about reproductive rights. The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable those who seek to disrupt access to our nation’s reproductive health services, regardless of their status as defendants or victims.”
In March, the Department of Justice announced charges against River and Gabriela Oropesa for their role in a conspiracy to prevent employees of reproductive health services facilities from providing services. The two suspects joined Freestone and Smith-Stewart, who were indicted in January, as co-conspirators.
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The message left by the suspect matched one that the far-left group Jane’s Revenge allegedly left in spray paint at pro-life centers after vandalizing dozens of pro-life centers following the leaking of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Hall Women’s Health, which ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.
The Justice Department said similar facilities in Hollywood and Hialeah, Florida, were also targeted.
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Rivera, along with Freestone and Smith-Stewart, are charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) by using threats of violence to intimidate and obstruct employees of the ProLife Center of Winter Haven because they were providing or attempting to provide reproductive health services, and by intentionally damaging and destroying facility property because the facility provides reproductive health services.
The FACE Act makes it a federal crime to use or threaten to use force to “injure, intimidate, or interfere with” someone seeking reproductive health services, or to intentionally damage a facility that provides reproductive health services.
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Sentencing is scheduled to take place at a later date, and all three defendants face up to 10 years in prison.
Fox News Digital’s Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
